CinemaskopLast month's silver screen stars

December 2009

AriesWith loud and thunderous action-blockbuster “2012” and its spectacular
special effects we’re in for constant rushes of adrenaline, but along
with the action, which is typical for Aries, comes the motif of a new start,
another Aries-analogue: In order not to suffer complete extermination by the
catastrophic forces of nature, the leaders of the world decide to secure mankind’s
survival after the model of Noah’s Ark. But those who are not part of
the program have to fight for survival on their own...

TaurusAn excitingly sensual college-beauty (Megan Fox) is literally transformed
into a man-eater possessed by a greedy demon after a Satanist ritual,
performed by some rock band she hung out with, went wrong. Thus “Jennifer’s
Body” is all about the Taurus-Scorpio-axis. A nice teenager-horror-flick
based on the popular motif of “Beauty and the Beast” – who
are both sharing here the desired body of a woman that is (not only)
the (teenage) incarnation of sex…

Gemini
A group of friends hopes for interesting holidays, a variety of entertainment
and fun (all typical Gemini-activities) in a beautiful tropical couples
resort. Yet the couple who initiated the trip tricked them – they
are at couples paradise in order to save their marriage with the help
of some unusual therapeutic methods. Now “Couples Retreat” with
sometimes slightly witty humor narrates how the other three couples are
forced to confront their own relationship problems by strange encounters
with sharks or oversexed yoga-teachers.

Cancer„Hachiko: A Dog's Story“ is a very touching, Cancer-like
story about the deep bond of friendship between a college professor and
a puppy he finds and raises. Every evening Hachiko meets the professor
(played by Richard Gere with his well known heartwarming presence) at
the station – even when he’s not coming any more because
he died from a heart attack, the dog waiting for him every day. Hachikos
love and loyalty moves the whole town and also us sitting in the theatre.
The story borders dangerously close on kitsch, yet it is told with heartwarming
sincerity and not too syrupy.

Leo
A wedding usually is a huge feast, a party full of joy and lust for life
and thus an event of true Leo-energy. In “Silent Wedding” (“Nunta
muta”) a young couple’s wedding in a Romanian village is
supposed to be just like that. But unfortunately it’s the year
1953 and the great Stalin had just died. In Romania a time of official
mourning is declared and it is not allowed to celebrate at all. How
the villagers and wedding guests still have a good time and what the
consequences are, testifies to the power but nonetheless also to the
repression of Leo-energy (by Saturn and Pluto)…

Virgo
The award-winning documentary film “Alone in Four Walls” (“Allein
in vier Wänden”) reports from a reformatory for juvenile delinquents
in Ural. In its unspectacular approach the film focuses on the everyday
life these boys, aged eleven to sixteen, have to lead there. Many of them – mostly
convicted for theft or murder and coming from very low and neglected environments –experience
proper care and regular daily routine for the first time in their lives.
Accordingly in a very Virgo-typical way the film shows many images of this
everyday life, that is shaped by simple duties and useful preoccupations.

Libra„Love Happens“ is quite your usual romance with a little depth.
Three years after his wife died self-help-guru Burke wrote a book about
mourning and is quite successful. Yet he still has not confronted his own
grief. Then he meets Eloise, who’s working hard to get over her last
romantic disappointment. How these two slowly become closer, learn to see
each other and feel forced to give up their masks is a Libra-story containing
some Scorpio-motifs.

ScorpioEspecially the German title of “Law Abiding Citizen“ (“Gesetz
der Rache“ – literally: “law of revenge”) points
to the Scorpio- and Capricorn-qualities of this new vigilante-thriller
starring Gerald Butler and Jamie Foxx, where a desperate man utterly disappointed
by the judicial system, becomes a dangerous killer. The Scorpio-motif of
revenge and destruction is addressed against the Capricorn-analogy of state
and law – we can also see current Pluto in Capricorn here (“I’m
gonna bring the whole system down on your head“!). The question is
posed, if the price a society is willing to pay in order to maintain its
functionality, is too high, when it means that strong bonds and emotions
and intense experiences of loss have to be abandoned. One image struck
me as a perfect illustration of the Saturn-Pluto-conflict: the half-naked
avenger is lead away by a heavily armored SWAT-Team under the eye of the
very correct and business-like district attorney…

SagittariusSet in the world of Big Business, with a protagonist, who as a high ranking
executive turns informant for the FBI against the illegal price-fixing
activities of his company, vigorously making this his mission, “The
Informant!” is a real Sagittarian movie. The Sagittarian quality
is moreover emphasized in Marc Whitacres (Matt Damon) delusional megalomania,
which leads to his own criminal activities as well as to the largest
price-fixing case in the US, and it also shows in Whitacres diagnosis
with bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder.

Capricorn
Very reduced in form as well as in story, the Finnish film “The
Visitor” (Muukalainen) tells the tale of a mute boy, who with his
mother lives a hard working, isolated life in the woods, while the father
is in jail. When a wounded visitor becomes a part of the boy’s
and his mother’s life, circumstances start changing… The
reduction in dialogue, color, narration and the motifs of hardship, responsibility
and guilt, but also the atmosphere of gloom and hidden menace add to
the films Capricorn-quality.

AquariusMichael Moore, director of famous documentary movies, likes to present
himself as an entertaining yet provocative revolutionary. In “Capitalism:
A Love Story“ he again raises uncomfortable questions, this time addressed
to the financial world. And as always he is looking for idealistic visions
of a better world, Aquarian ideals, which he shows in the real world for
example in a house squatting or in a company, where every employee has the
same salary (as it seems fit to the Aquarian credo about “freedom,
equality, brotherhood”).

Pisces
An extraordinary combination of the Capricorn-theme guilt with motifs of
Pisces comes to the screen in “The Door” (“Die Tür”).
A man burdened with guilt discovers after several years a door, that
leads to the parallel world of his past, where he can get a second chance,
the chance to not become guilty. He tries to be a better husband and
father than his younger Ego was, but in order to do that, he has to kill
himself. This might as well be read as a dissolution of the Ego – which
is a Pisces-theme, just as the parallel world, a world of assumed or
borrowed identities, where the danger of disclosure is omnipresent, a
world where fathers want to be guardian angels. Maybe Saturn wanting
to become Neptune?

Vesna Ivkovic

Vesna
Ivkovic studied literature and linguistics, sociology, philosophy and
history and as well took a profound interest in psychology, mythology
and different belief systems. Along the way she also explored various
paths of body awareness such as the martial arts of Kung Fu, Dance,
Yoga, Qi Gong and several other methods of body work and motion arts.
In 1993 she discovered astrology as an instrument of knowledge and graduated
in 2004 in Markus Jehle's and Petra Niehaus' master class at the Astrology
Center Berlin. You can find out more about the author and her work on
her own website www.astrosemiotics.de

The Cinemascope is meant to give an overview of current movies and their main themes from an astrosemiotical perspective (i.e.: regarding film as semiotic system and translating it into the astrological semiotic system). A well made movie not only has a story and a certain theme, it also provides a special atmosphere, a certain feeling and it draws us into its very own world. This basic quality that is contrived through characters, plot, setting and many other components also translates into one or more astrological principles. Quite simply: a fast-paced action-flick confronts us with plain Aries energy, a horror-movie evokes Scorpio-like abysmal depths and fears etc. We step out of the theatre and – if the film succeeded in sucking us in – find ourselves dwelling on and engaging in that special energetic quality.

AstroWiki
by Astrodienst is a free encyclopedia of astrology. It collects the knowledge
of the astrological community and makes it available to everybody. The Wiki`s
cadre consists of two astrological lexica.

As one of the largest astrology portals WWW.ASTRO.COM offers a lot of free features on the subject. With high-quality horoscope interpretations by the world's leading astrologers Liz Greene, Robert Hand and other authors, many free horoscopes and extensive information on astrology for beginners and professionals, www.astro.com is the first address for astrology on the web.